O’Reilly’s Political Smears

On his October 4 broadcast, Fox host Bill O’Reilly presented a segment about “political smear” websites that “will do and say pretty much anything to harm people with whom they disagree politically.” Ironically, O’Reilly used that very segment to launch his own smear.

Guest David Kline said to O’Reilly: “I think there are a lot of nut cases out there. You have web sites and political bloggers that believe that President Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.”

O’Reilly responded by saying, “You mean he didn’t? That’s what I’ve been hearing from Phil Donahue and Jeremy Glick and Michael Moore, that he orchestrated it. You mean he didn’t? That’s not true?”

Former talkshow host Donahue and filmmaker Moore do not subscribe to the theory that Bush masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks. And, despite O’Reilly repeated accusations (see Media Matters, 9/22/05), neither does Jeremy Glick, a one-time guest on O’Reilly’s show (2/4/03) whose father was killed in the September 11 attacks. When Glick appeared on the show, he referred to the “political legacy” of the United States “training militarily, economically and situating geopolitically” the mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, some of whom (including Osama bin Laden) would later form Al-Qaeda. Following Glick’s appearance, O’Reilly attempted to twist his remarks to suggest that Glick believed George W. Bush was involved in the September 11 attacks (9/18/03, 9/19/03. 7/20/04).

Oddly enough, O’Reilly had recently explained (9/22/05) the “rules” for his program as follows: “No slander and no personal accusations without facts to back them up. If the guest violates those rules, they are scolded by me and will not be invited back.”